Some of the basics of what we call music theory were devised by people, but many of the primary principles were dictated by nature, as sound waves behave as they will, regardless of our efforts!
If you pluck an open string on a guitar or violin or even an outstretched rubber band and then touch it directly in the middle and pluck it again, the two tones will sound the same but different. They go together perfectly. A top tone and a bottom tone, so to speak.
For the moment, let's call the distance between these tones nature's interval. Nature's Interval - Piano Nature's Interval - Recorder Nature's Interval - Guitar
In between nature's interval are eleven other evenly-divided tones. Those eleven tones together with the note of nature's interval gives us the twelve tones of our musical system.1
Depicted using colored squares, this division of nature's interval (in red) looks like this:
Depicted using names (nature's interval is named James) it looks like this:
James
Sarah
Candi
Tony
Lanita
Jose
Molly
Demarcus
Maria
Joe
Julia
Michael
James
Depicted using the note names that we use, it looks like this:
A
A sharp
B
C
C sharp
D
D sharp
E
F
F sharp
G
G sharp
A
Or this:
A
B flat
B
C
D flat
D
E flat
E
F
G flat
G
A flat
A
Click to hear the twelve tone scale.
1Commonly referred to as "Western Music", to be distinguished from "Eastern Music" of the Far East, where nature's interval is sometimes divided into more than twelve tones.
Half Step, Whole Step
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